


Hate to See Him Leave

by Winddrag0n



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, M/M, ass-grabbing, spoilers for the entire series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 20:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17794094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winddrag0n/pseuds/Winddrag0n
Summary: “You’re fixated,” Will accuses, but does not continue.Hannibal shifts in his chair, eyes flashing. “What do you believe me to be fixated on?”“I… are you really going to make me come out and say it?”-Snapshots from canon with two firm, shapely differences.





	Hate to See Him Leave

**Author's Note:**

> While this isn't the first thing I've written for this show, it's unfortunately the first thing I've finished, so...

It starts purely by chance, as everything would come to be.

Will is clad in nothing but his boxer-briefs when he opens the door, squinting his eyes at the brightness of the sun and looking at Hannibal with something like disbelief. The taller man holds up several cups and a warm container full of food invitingly. “Good morning, Will. May I come in?”

The scruffier man wipes the sleep out of his eyes and grunts noncommittally. He had obviously not slept well, likely tormented by nightmares of Elise Nichols and others hung on bloody antlers. “Sure,” he answers, too exhausted to come up with a real reason to say no, and turns and walks back into the hotel room.

It happens now. Hannibal’s eyes flick up and down the man’s body, assessing as he often does when he knows he will not be seen. He gets halfway down the body and then his eyes slow, and when they flick back up they remain static until Will’s path causes him to turn and hides it partially from view, enough to snap him out of it. Hannibal regains himself quickly, entering the room and closing the door behind him. He busies himself with plating the food he has brought and making small talk.

Will does not cover himself further when they eat, and Hannibal’s eyes wandering goes unnoticed as the empath steadfastly avoids eye contact until the meal has been finished and they leave to catch the Shrike.

\---

They sit across from each other in Hannibal’s office, discussing Eldon Stammets.

“He was trying to make connections,” Hannibal prompts, but Will turns away. “To him, they were beautiful.”

“It’s fungus,” Will answers flatly. “There’s not a whole lot of beauty to be found.”

“Ah, I believe I have a book that may be relevant.” Hannibal inclines his head up, towards the shelves of books on the second floor in front of him. “I’m afraid I’ve slept wrong, though, and my back is hurting me. Would you mind retrieving it for me?”

“Getting old, Doctor Lecter?” Will shoots him a wry smile, but he stands. “On the second floor?”

Hannibal nods, and watches as he climbs the ladder. “Center bookcase, second lowest shelf.” The angle here was as good as he had imagined, Will’s jacket riding up enough to give him a clear view. He has it memorized in record time. “It will be a dark green book with golden embossing.”

“I think I’ve got it,” Will says eventually, and straightens up. “Is this a book of fungal photography?”

“That’s the one,” Hannibal confirms. Will climbs back down and sits, book in his lap. “Feel free to look through it.”

Will does, silent, and Hannibal watches his changing expressions as he looks at the photos. “Okay, fine, maybe fungus can be beautiful too, at times.”

“Objective beauty is rare,” Hannibal assents, keeping his eyes up. “It does not make what he did right, but perhaps he could see something we could not understand.”

“Speaking of things we do not understand,” Will interjects, clearly changing topic. “You’ll have to explain your filing system to me one of these days. I can’t imagine why you’d keep a book of photography tucked in between Kant and Schopenhauer.”

Hannibal stiffens, but relaxes almost immediately. “There is a method to the madness, I assure you.” The other man’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but he lets the matter drop. “Now, let us talk about something else entirely; our dear Abigail.”

It’s a cheap tactic to deflect attention, but it works, and they discuss her health for the rest of the session.

\---

They speak of the angel maker, god, and death. Will stands and walks to the edge of the room, his back to Hannibal, who waits several minutes before he follows. A black statue of a stag is before them, and Will seems engrossed. Hannibal steps near, and he leans forward, and Will frowns. “Did you… did you just brush up against me?”

It was putting it mildly, as Will had sworn he had felt a measure of pressure, but he was already starting to distrust his mind and it couldn’t possibly have been what he suspects. “I did not,” Hannibal confirms, though he was standing uncomfortably close, soon backing away as Will tenses at the proximity. “Have you ever experienced a tactile hallucination before, Will?”

“A tactile-” Will barks out a laugh, turning to face the doctor. “No, I haven’t.”

A tiny wisp of a smile emerges across Hannibal’s features, and anyone other than Will would have missed it. “Then perhaps you are simply tired. I have a variety of alternative sleep aids, if you wish to try something to help you rest tonight.”

“Are you offering me weed, doctor?”

“THC is among them, yes. Would you like to try it?”

Will laughs again, but it is lighter, and the tension has dissipated. “Can you imagine me explaining that to Jack? No, sir, I _don’t_ have a prescription, but you see, he’s not technically my doctor so it wouldn’t make a difference anyway!” Hannibal is looking at him with a waiting expression, and Will sighs. “Tried it. Didn’t help.”

“Something else, then,” and then they are rooting through a collection of drugs Hannibal absolutely should not have and Will doesn’t plan on remembering. He leaves empty handed nonetheless.

Hannibal stares at his own hand after Will has gone, extending and contracting his fingers, memorizing that perfect feeling before it escapes entirely.

\---

Will bursts into Hannibal’s office, Jack in tow, and his entire body sags with relief when he sees the man in question seated at his own desk, bandaged but alive. He steps around the bloodied stag and makes a beeline for the desk. Hannibal waves the paramedic away and Will sits on the desk, one leg stretched out before him and the other hanging free.

“I was worried you were dead,” Hannibal murmurs, unusually quiet.

“You had reason to worry,” Will counters, holding up his wounded arm.

Jack joins them, arms crossed. “Tobias Budge kills two Baltimore police officers,” he begins, and then they are talking about the case, but Will does not budge from where he is perched.

Finally, he leaves, and Will dabs at Hannibal’s bloodied forehead with the gauze that had been set out on the counter. “I feel like I’ve dragged you into my world,” he whispers.

“I got here on my own,” Hannibal assures. “But I appreciate the company.”

Will leans back and sets the gauze to the side. His eyes narrow. “Are you in shock?”

“Hm? I don’t believe so,” Hannibal answers, voice faraway.

“You’ve sort of… zoned out, looking… down. Look at my face.”

Hannibal pretends to realize his gaze has by happenstance been focused on where Will meets the desk, instead of being where he has deliberately left it since the moment the other man sat. He lifts his head, smiling apologetically. “I am sorry, Will. I may be more affected than I realized.”

The smile he is rewarded with is soft and honest, and if Hannibal had been a different man, he may have regretted his actions. “It’s okay, Hannibal. You almost died. It’s a lot to take in.”

_It certainly is,_ Hannibal thinks, but his eyes remain on Will’s face. “Thank you for reassuring me. How is your arm? Would you let me take a look at it?”

Will holds his injured limb out obediently, and Hannibal inspects it as the officers mill around them, giving them the room they need to breathe.

\---

“He _what?_ ”

“Not so loud!” Will hisses, holding a hand out as if he could physically compress the volume of Beverly’s voice.

“Okay, sorry.” She sets down the sandwich she had been eating in the tiny, hole-in-the-wall deli they stopped for lunch in and leans forward. “You wanna walk me through this again?”

“He just… sometimes I think I catch his eyes wandering, and one session I swear I felt him grab me. After Budge, he spent the entire conversation _staring._ ” Will’s eyes dart around the room, calculating how close the other diners were and how to stay quiet enough so as not to be overheard. “I basically had to tell him to keep his eyes ‘up here’.”

“Wait, he touched you?” The look on Beverly’s face darkens considerably. “Isn’t he your psychiatrist?”

“Technically, no.”

“Well then it’s all okay then isn’t it?” She looks one second away from throwing a punch. “Do you want me to beat him up? Is that what this conversation is?”

“No, Jesus! I just… don’t know what to do about it, alright?”

“You…” Now she frowns, then all at once her fury melts away. “Are you bragging? You like it, don’t you?”

Will has no idea how this conversation has run so far away from him so quickly, but he desperately tries to rein it back in. “Beverly, for fuck’s sake!” She tilts her head, eyes triumphant. “I’m not saying I hate it but I… don’t mind, I guess. It’s just weird more than anything else.”

“Are you trying to speed things along here or dial them back?”

The table makes a solid ‘thud’ sound as Will’s head connected with it. “I don’t know why I decided to talk to you of all people,” he mutters, voice muffled by the table.

“Because if it’s the first, you could probably just stand in front of him and bend over while wearing a pair of tight pants.” She pauses. “Who else would you be talking to, Zeller?”

Will jerks his body back up, rubbing at his face aimlessly. “The only person I really spend time talking to is Hannibal, if I’m being honest,” he groans.

“Just call him out next time,” she suggests, shrugging. “See what his reaction is and go from there.”

“He denies it,” Will responds quickly, thinking back to the last major incidents. “He plays it off like it didn’t happen or it was something else entirely.”

Beverly hums before taking another bite of her sandwich. “He’s trying to play it cool,” she adds helpfully, chewing as she talks. “Wouldn’t really fit his mysterious and cultured image.”

“Hannibal Lecter, doctor and connoisseur of asses,” Will muses, and Beverly almost inhales the bite of sandwich still in her mouth.

“Will,” she coughs, and he pushes his glass of water towards her. She drinks it down enthusiastically. “You can’t just drop lines like that without warning.”

Will grins. “So just confront him again if it gets out of hand?”

“Be direct! Don’t let him change the subject or make excuses.” A finger is jabbed his direction. “You have to take control of the situation.”

“Got it,” Will nods.

“I gotta say…” Beverly takes a sip before resuming her thought. “Lecter seems so aloof and untouchable, but you’ve managed to seduce him just by standing next to him and turning around.”

“Oh my god,” Will mutters, the first of many. “Is what the rest of my life is going to be like?”

“Oh! Could you do me a favor?” The black-haired woman seems serious all of a sudden, and Will straightens in his seat.

“What is it?”

“Can you read that specials menu for me?” She points to a chalkboard at the counter, directly behind Will. “If you stand you’ll be able to see it better. Make sure to leave your  jacket on your chair.”

“Okay, fine,” Will bites out, no real venom behind the words. “You wanna see my ass? Go crazy. I don’t even understand what the big deal is.” He stands, faces away, and waits, hands on his hips.

Beverly is silent for an unusually long time, and Will is about to turn when he hears a low whistle from behind him. “Damn, Graham,” she whispers, false awe evident in her voice. “The ass that launched a thousand ships.”

“I will _never_ ask you for help again,” Will groans.

\---

The forensics team starts keeping track. Will knows this because Beverly sends him photos of the notebook they write it down in. It had only been her handwriting at first, but then Price’s had begun showing up, and even Zeller logs some instances. Some had seemed unbelievable at first- _Wednesday, 11:48: Hannibal spotted looking at a beautiful pond that, upon further investigation, was placed exactly right to view the reflection of the window Will was standing in front of at the time-_ but this was also exactly the sort of bullshit he had come to expect out of the doctor. It was beginning to get out of hand.

This was what Will had been thinking about when Hannibal had asked him what was on his mind, and in his rush to disguise his true thoughts he had blurted out that he had lost time at the beach earlier, and then they were talking about the totem pole and empathy and the waves crashing over Will, threatening to overwhelm and sweep him away.

“You have no place you feel you can relax,” Hannibal posits, eyes sharp. “I am here to support you, am I not?”

“You are, but sometimes nothing can help me.”

“You are tired,” Hannibal continues, almost as if Will hadn’t spoken. “You are walking endlessly, feet torn and bleeding, and all that surrounds you are shards of bone. It is imperative that you sit and rest, Will. Let me be your cushion.”

“Okay, no, absolutely not.” Will stands suddenly and Hannibal frowns.

“Is something the matter, Will?”

“This is becoming too much. Are we going to talk about this or not?” Will throws his hands up into the air; the dam has finally burst.

“Is there something you wish to talk about in particular?” Hannibal cocks his head, expression neutral.

“You’re fixated,” Will accuses, but does not continue.

Hannibal shifts in his chair, eyes flashing. “What do you believe me to be fixated on?”

“I… are you really going to make me come out and say it?” He deflates slightly, realizing how ridiculous saying it out loud is going to be.

“I cannot know what you are thinking if you do not tell me, Will.”

_Liar,_ Will says, but only to himself. He changes tactics. “After Stammets, you made me get that book for you. It was put back in the wrong spot but you knew exactly where it was.” He pauses, allowing time for Hannibal to reach his own conclusions. “I had to bend over to get it.”

“I’m afraid I do not follow.” A glint in those red-brown eyes- is that amusement?

“Budish- you grabbed me, and do me a favor and don’t try and deny it. Budge, you barely looked at my face the entire conversation.”

“Are you accusing me of something improper?”

“I’m saying you have some sort of… fixation… with a very specific part of me.”

“You must realize how absurd this sounds, do you not? Are you hallucinating again?” The doctor uncrosses his leg and leans forwards. “What has put this idea into your head?”

_Don’t let him deny it,_ Beverly had said. _Take control of the situation._ Will turns away from Hannibal, testing this once and for all. He crossed his arms and waits.

Silence hangs in the air for several minutes, eventually broken by Hannibal himself. “I am afraid I do not know what you are trying to accomplish.”

A jolt of doubt shoots through Will. _Am I mistaken?_ No, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, and other people have noticed. Hannibal had taken a long time to respond. Slowly, he reaches for his belt and begins unbuckling it. He isn’t going to let this slide again.

Hannibal is on him so quickly it knocks the breath out of him, heart racing at double speed. A bruising grip encircles his wrists, jerking his hands away from where they had been poised to pull the belt out of the loops of his jeans. “That will not be necessary, Will,” Hannibal growls, and his voice hides an emotion Will cannot discern.

It terrifies him, but he is triumphant.

“You going to keep pretending like nothing is going on?” Will breathes, voice hitching slightly.

Hannibal releases his wrists and steps back. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you may be talking about,” he answers, and Will scowls openly, but feels the burning heat of Hannibal’s gaze nonetheless.

\---

Later, but soon, they stand before a window, staring out into the darkness, the truth about Nicholas Boyle hanging in the air between them. Hannibal puts his hand on Will, meant to be reassuring and grounding, but Will swats his hand away with a firm downward strike. Distantly, he wonders if he has opened the gates to something that can never fully be recontained.

\---

“He’s had a mild seizure,” Hannibal declares. Will stands before him, tremors racking his body, eyelids fluttering.

“That’s an interesting way to diagnose a seizure, doctor Lecter.” Gideon peers at the two men standing by the unlit fireplace, particularly where Hannibal’s hands remained firmly planted on Will’s ass.

“I don’t believe I asked you for a second opinion,” Hannibal bites out, uncharacteristically clipped and harsh. “He’ll recover soon.”

“That doesn’t seem to bother you.” A hand, pointing at the obvious. “If anything, the opposite.”

“I said it was mild.” Hannibal releases his grip and steps back, pulling the gun from Will’s hands and pointing it at Gideon. “Now, are you the man who claimed to be the Chesapeake Ripper?”

\---

What follows next is only fire. After everything has burned to ashes, Will is sitting in a cell, and Beverly is dead.

_Don’t let him make excuses,_ the slices of her corpse whisper to him. _Take control of the situation._

Will’s mind is his most formidable weapon, but it seems that there’s something else that can work even better on Hannibal Lecter. He closes his eyes and decides the reckoning that he will bring.

\---

“I find myself mourning his absence,” Hannibal admits, looking away.

What he misses more immediately is Bedelia rolling her eyes, finally unable to contain the urge. “What part of him?” She has heard far too much poetic nonsense about one man’s ass than she had ever wanted to hear, and is in no mood to hear more.

“All of him,” comes the answer, and even Hannibal looks surprised at that.

_Unsurprising,_ Bedelia notes. “You are certain this is not simply the loss of an aesthetic you admired?”

“I wish to speak with him again.”

“Stop visiting him unless you plan to do something that will help the man,” Bedelia chastises. “He believes you to be both the killer he has been chasing and the one responsible for putting him in prison. Visiting him will only cause him anguish. I would think the fact that he tried to have you killed would be evidence enough of that.” Behind the mask, there’s a flash of what almost looks like fondness, and Bedelia valiantly fights the urge to roll her eyes once more. The glimpses of the beast she saw showed something that was somehow both terrifying and sickeningly devoted. Will would be out of prison soon enough, she knows this as certainly as she knows the sky is blue and the grass is green, and she has no desire to be around to see what madness pours forth.

“Then I will convince him that he need not worry around me,” comes the eventual reply, and Bedelia does not miss how he addressed exactly none of her concerns.

“Good luck,” she mutters, taking a long drink of her wine. The farther away she was when these fools finally reunited, the better.

\---

“I’m a good fisherman, Jack,” Will promises. “But I’ll need some resources.”

“Whatever manpower or information you need, you have it.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a wardrobe change.”

“Clothes?” Jack furrows his brow, searching for an explanation and finding none. “What the hell do you need new clothes for?”

“What do I- Jack, are you blind?” It wasn’t impossible Jack had missed the way Hannibal watched, but he was the head of the BAU, and he certainly hadn’t earned that position by being dense.

“I don’t think Lecter would care if you showed up in the same old clothes you always have.”

Or maybe he had. “It’s- look, it’s important. Just trust me, alright?”

“I’ve been meaning to get better at that,” and Jack gives him a sad smile. “Tell me what you need and I’ll get it set up.” Will nods in thanks. “You hook him, I’ll land him.”

\---

“I’d like to resume my therapy,” Will had said, and he hadn’t broken eye contact while he said it. Hannibal looked inside and saw nothing, and wondered if this was what Will saw when he looked into his own eyes.

Will turns away and walks over to his usual chair, taking his sweet time to saunter over. He’s wearing close-fitting black pants that hug his hips and accentuate his strengths. Was it- no, he’d been in jail, it couldn’t have.

“There were times when the stream was not a comfort,” Will says suddenly, as if he had heard Hannibal’s internal question. “I would get restless and needed to burn off the energy. Not much to do in a tiny cell on your own, so I started doing squats.” He bends over slightly to dig his fingers into the cushion of his usual chair, as if testing it for defects. “It helped take my mind off of everything and tired me out so I could fall asleep.”

Wretched, wondrous boy. Hannibal very stiffly guides himself to his own chair and sits, waiting for Will to do the same. “Where shall we begin?” The words are clipped and strained, and Will looks over his shoulder and smiles a joyless smile.

“I don’t know, doctor Lecter,” he answers playfully. He stretches his arms above his head, body tensing, before he finally turns and sits. “What would you like?” His head cocks, and he leans to the side in the chair, crossing a leg so the line of this thigh could be followed down into the curve that sank gloriously into the seat.

If this was to be his reckoning, then Hannibal found he didn’t much mind this sweet, tortuous death.

\---

“Let me kill him,” Will growls, and he snakes his hand out, aiming for the gun where it sits in Hannibal’s.

Hannibal dodges it easily and raises the gun above his head, using his slight edge in terms of height to his full advantage. “Focus, Will,” he murmurs, eyes fixed on the wild, feral look of the man below him.

“ _He’s going to get away,_ ” and now it was a hiss. “We don’t have the evidence to convict him. He’ll walk free. Let me take care of it.”

Hannibal wants to, he truly does. Seeing Will bathed in blood and high off the kill would be an incredible sight, but it was far too early into the game to allow him to kill so freely. If he could he would rend the flesh from Clark Ingram’s bones and spirit the two of them away into the night, leaving only a mess of blood and viscera for Jack to find when he searched for what remained of his precious prodigy. But it was far too early. Will is slipping, burning from an animalistic rage that was finally beginning to surface. “Then he will get away. You cannot catch them all, Will.” He steps back and watches the other man tense in preparation for another lunge. Ah, if he stepped to the side and angled himself just so-

As expected, Will lunges and Hannibal pivots, allowing Will’s own inertia to knock him off balance. He catches him when he stumbles, holding the full weight of the other man’s body with his own, and Will finds himself draped across the taller man’s chest, hands wildly grasping for the gun. With a smooth movement, Hannibal slips his index finger through the trigger and lets the revolver dangle, and he brings his hands down below the small of Will’s back and squeezes.

A sharp intake of breath from Will, and Hannibal leans closer to whisper in his ear. “ _Focus, Will. Come back to yourself._ ”

Eventually, Will’s breathing slows, and his fluttering heart calms. “Let go of me,” he mutters, and Hannibal obliges. When Will steps back, a faint blush dusts his cheeks, which Hannibal does not acknowledge. His eyes are clear.

“Can I…?” Clark Ingram interjects, eyes darting between the two men standing in between himself and freedom.

Hannibal sighs and waves the gun towards the exit. The social worker scurries away, and Will tracks him with a faint frown.

“What if he tells someone?” he questions.

“Who would believe him?” Hannibal answers.

Will nods- Hannibal had a good point. Jack certainly wouldn’t. He doesn’t bother asking Hannibal why he had done it, and Hannibal doesn’t bother explaining himself.

\---

They’re sitting at one end of Hannibal’s dining table, a body cooling on the table proper. Hannibal pulls Will’s hands out of the water bath they have been soaking in, gently patting them dry. “Don’t go inside, Will,” he chastises.

Will remains silent but his eyes focus on Hannibal’s face. The older man applies ointment with a practiced ease, rubbing it in with the faintest touch. “I’m here,” he assures, but the words are barely audible.

“Stay with me.” Hannibal wraps the gauze as if he is holding glass that could shatter at any moment. When the job is finished he does not release Will’s hands.

“Where else am I going to go?” Will’s head is cocked, only just, face blank.

They lock eyes, and no words are spoken. It’s broken by Hannibal clearing his throat. “You have just fought someone to the death, and I do not believe this is the only way you have been touched. May I check you for additional injuries?” His voice is even and measured but Will does not miss the way his eyes flick downwards.

“You may not.” As punishment, he removes his hands, and Hannibal ducks his head like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. _Transparent, Lecter,_ Will ponders. _Too direct. Has the game become too boring?_ He blinks. _Or have I won so easily?_

“When you were killing Randall, did you fantasize you were killing me?” Hannibal has recovered and continues the conversation.

Will did, and he says as much, but he very carefully does not mention _how_.

\---

“You fed him to my dogs,” Will observes, frowning at the corpse laying on his carpet.

“I think you’ll find,” Hannibal answers primly, “that he fed them himself.”

“Right,” Will snorts, the strange magic that had captivated them shattering. “Are you going to be cleaning this up?”

“Call Jack. You will need to regardless.”

“Are you telling me to use the FBI as a cleaning service?” Hannibal does not look away, and Will can tell he’s seriously suggesting it. “They can’t connect him back to either of us, you know that. We need to dump him and take care of it ourselves.”

“I am willing to help you,” Hannibal begins, and Will _knows_ he’s not going to like how this sentence ends, “if you are willing to do me a favor in turn.”

“You gotta do the dumping too,” Will amends quickly, knowing what’s going to be on the table. “What do you want?”

Hannibal had been raising a single hand, but stops briefly after Will has spoken and raises two instead, palms forward and fingers up. “Ten seconds. I will return Mason to where he belongs and clean the mess he has left in his delirium.”

“Jesus, Hannibal,” and Will laughs, bringing a hand to his forehead. “I thought you were pretending that none of this was real?”

“We seem to be beyond the point of false pretenses, I would think,” and the look he gives Will chills him to the bone. “You have been using it as a bargaining chip for some time and it does me no good to deny it.”

“Don’t…” Will does not know what to say and instead makes a continuous squeezing movement with his hands. It looks vulgar.

“Then no pants,” Hannibal counters, and Will had never in his entire life imagined this as a conversation he would be having.

“Five seconds.”

“Fifteen, and I will tend to your wounds and dogs so you may sleep while I work.”

Will would never fall asleep in front of Hannibal, but laying down with his eyes closed and ignoring him was an appealing prospect at the moment. “Deal. Now, or…?” He undoes his belt anyways. Hannibal holds his hand out to do what Will assumes is shake on the deal, so he makes the mistake of gripping it and is instead pulled forward until he is flush with the other man’s chest. Strong hands grip the sides of his jeans and wrench them downwards, ripping the button clear off the denim and forcing the zipper down in a display of strength that forces an incredibly undignified squeak out of the younger man. Then-

Hannibal sighs happily and Will feels his face heat up. The doctor has stayed true to his word and while he was not massaging, he has latched on incredibly strongly, and Will imagines he will feel phantom hands gripping his ass for quite some time.

It feels like fifteen minutes before Hannibal releases him and Will scrambles backwards the moment he is free. His mouth is flapping like a fish and he can’t form words properly. Of course, Hannibal looks like he hadn’t spent the last however many seconds with a death grip on the other man’s butt. “I’ll return shortly,” he promises, slinging Mason over a shoulder. “Feel free to retire.”

Will stares at the spot where Hannibal had been long after the man has left, pants caught around his thighs, even the scratching of his dogs against the door unable to rouse him.

\---

The sound Will makes when Hannibal stabs him is exquisite. Hannibal lowers him to the floor lovingly, supporting him from below as his life slips between his fingers.

Abigail’s mouth is gaping, but her brows are furrowed. “Did you just…?”

“Come, Abigail,” he says sharply, and she goes, and the world is bathed in blood.

\---

“I forgive you,” Will whispers into the darkness, and then a loose pebble falls from the ceiling and rebounds off a pillar and hits him directly in the ass. “I know that wasn’t a coincidence,” he hisses, but no one responds.

Later, he decides to see where Hannibal came from, and is pushed off a train for his efforts. Chiyoh watches as he tumbles head first over the railing and for a brief moment she truly understands Hannibal.

\---

Mason has left them tied up at the dining table, presumably to stew over their fates. He shouldn’t have left them together, but he likely knows this and simply does not care.

Will spits a mouthful of blood off to the side and looks at Hannibal. “What exactly were you trying to prove to Jack?

“I was going to serve him your brain,” Hannibal says as if it was obvious. “After I had eaten some myself. Only fair to let him have a taste of what he’d come close to ruining.”

There is no cut on Will’s forehead, and he is bandaged in a different place. “Going in the long way ‘round?”

There is no response because Mason has driven himself back into the dining room and parks himself at the head of the table where he had been previously. “You know,” he drones, “sitting in this chair all day is hell on my back. Can’t feel a damn thing, but it’s ruining what’s left of my spine!” Only Mason laughs. “I could use a better cushion. Maybe I’ll ask Cordell to perform an additional surgery.”

Will glances and Hannibal and though his expression has not changed, his eyes betray a look of cold fury. “Are you- _really_ , Hannibal?” Will wants to rub his hand across his forehead but he cannot, so he shakes his head instead. “He just told us he was going to _eat you with my face_ but god forbid he ruins _that._ ”

“Cordell will do a good job,” Mason supplies unhelpfully. “It won’t be the same, of course, but you can rest easy knowing your precious boy’s cheeks will outlive you both.” A pause. “Maybe don’t rest easy, actually.”

Hannibal’s lip has curled up in the beginnings of a snarl and Will wishes he could kick him under the table. “You were going to do just about the same,” Will points out.

“ _It’s different,_ ” Hannibal growls. Mason laughs, and Will almost joins him. He can’t believe he’s going to die with this being the last conversation he ever has.

\---

Instead, Will sits up in his bed, staring at Hannibal, feeling nothing and everything at once. “I don’t want to think about you anymore,” he finishes, and Hannibal looks as though he has been struck.

“What we have can never be matched, never be replicated,” Hannibal tries, and Will’s eyes snap up to meet the the other’s.

“Good.” He means it. “I don’t have your appetite, Hannibal. I can’t do this any longer.”

“Is this to be our goodbye?” Will nods, but his movements are jerky and uncoordinated. A beat passes. “Could I, one last time…”

“You bastard,” Will spits, “I can barely sit up.” But he leans forwards, pulls his hands back, and lifts himself several inches, and Hannibal rushes forwards and his hands slide home.

They remain there for a time, memorizing the point of connection.

That night, the FBI swarms the house in Wolf Trap, and Will watches from his porch, eyes and expression betraying nothing. “I want you to know exactly where I am,” Hannibal says, only to Will. “Where you can find me.”

Will turns away. To Jack, it’s a rejection, but to Hannibal, a kindness.

\---

Hannibal stands behind a plexiglass wall, holding a thick file in his hands. Will stands opposite, refusing to look him in the eyes for more than a few seconds at the time. “You’re family, Will,” he had said, and Will feels rooted to the spot and unable to move. He busies himself by glancing around the sparse contents of Hannibal’s cell, waiting for his feet to unglue and release him. They fall on a photo taped carefully onto the wall at the head of Hannibal’s cot.

He frowns. “What is that?”

Hannibal turns to see where his gaze has landed, though he already knows where it sits. “Ah,” is all he says, turning back around. “A photograph.”

Will walks along the length of the barrier, getting as close as he can and squinting to try and focus on the object. “Is that…”

“It’s possible,” is the response, and Will knows it is.

“Where the fuck did you get that?”

“Language, Will,” Hannibal chastises, and the look he receives could curdle milk. “Alana gave it to me.”

“I’ll be back in an hour,” Will spits out, already leaving. “After I talk to Alana.”

He heads straight for her office and throws the door open, startling her where she had been sitting at her desk.

“Will,” she begins, trying to regain composure. “It’s good to see you looking well-”

Will cuts her off. “Mind explaining to me why Hannibal has a photograph of my ass taped to his wall?”

“Ah,” is all she says, and for the second time Will’s immediate reaction is the urge to scream. “It was a reward for good behavior.”

“Are you _serious?_ ” he nearly yells. “What part of you thought that was a healthy thing to do?”

“Okay, Will, hold on.” She gestures to the seat in front of her and Will throws himself into it, arms crossed, face a mask of fury. “I didn’t come up with this idea out of nowhere. He…” She looks away, grimacing. “It will be easier to just show you.” Will closes his eyes and hears her walking across her office, only opening them again once he hears the dull thud of a box being set on the desk. It turns out to be a banker’s box, and from the volume of the thud, it is full. “Now before you open this-”

Will already has the lid off and he can’t truthfully say the contents surprise him. He shuffles through what must be hundreds of pencil sketches of him from behind. Within the artwork he is in various states of dress, drawn as mythological figures from every time period. “You have to save everything he creates, don’t you,” he guesses, leafing through the drawings.

“Because this is Hannibal,” Alana confirms, “anything he draws could have some deeper meaning that we’ll need to uncover later. Frankly, I was getting sick of it.”

“At least he’s kept me decent,” Will comments bluntly, holding up what appears to be him drawn as Zephyrus. He remembers sitting in front of a vast painting, staring into Hannibal’s eyes and trying to convince himself of what he must do.

“It’s a fixation, but I don’t believe it’s sexual,” Alana nods. “He draws you the same way he draws paintings and statues. It’s almost like he considers you to be art.”

“That’s not entirely reassuring,” Will mutters, and he uncovers a thick sealed envelope. “What’s in this?”

“Don’t open-”

He’s already holding the stack of papers, staring at what was hidden inside. Carefully, he flips through them all before sliding them back into the envelope and setting it on top of the papers in the box. “You said you don’t believe it’s sexual?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she admits, and she sounds so very tired.

“Are you still with Margot?” Will can tell she is uncomfortable and changes the subject.

They talk until Hannibal has finished looking over the case file, and Alana never notices Will has folded up the drawing of himself as Zephyrus and slipped it into his pocket while she wasn’t looking.

\---

Bedelia doesn’t understand how, after everything, she has come to be here, with Will Graham sat across from her.

“Is Hannibal in love with me?” he whispers, his face so open and shattered that she is overcome with the urge to crush him under her heel. He’s too dangerous- she knows if she tried he would spring closed like a bear trap, snapping her leg in two.

It clears, and is replaced with exasperation. “You cannot expect me to believe you have not noticed the way he watches you.”

“No, I know he’s into _that,_ I mean me. He’s in love with _me?_ ”

Bedelia sighs. She’s trapped, she knows it, but at the very least she wishes she didn’t have to play cupid to the two densest geniuses the world has ever seen. If this was truly her lot in life she was planning on having words with God once she met her maker.

\---

Everything is dark but the blood shines with the light of the moon. Will and Hannibal stand on the edge of the bluff, embracing, the body of Francis Dolarhyde forgotten. “It really does look black in the moonlight,” Will murmurs, and Hannibal tightens his hold.

“See. This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us.”

“It’s- Hannibal, are you fucking kidding me right now?” Will pushes the other man back, but Hannibal does not release his hands where they are tightly gripping the other man’s behind. “Let go before I pitch us both over the edge of this cliff.”

Hannibal obliges, but he does not step back. He also does not apologize.

Will turns away and walks back towards the house, Hannibal trailing close behind. He gives the corpse a wide berth and the moment he is inside he grabs another bottle of wine, shatters the neck on the counter, and waterfalls the liquid into his mouth. It burns terribly but he needs _something_ to douse the fire burning inside _._

“That is not good for your wound, Will,” but Hannibal does not stop him.

“Yeah, well, you’ve been shot in the gut and we just ripped a man apart, so I don’t really find myself caring at the moment.” He pauses. “Want some?”

“We need to take the camera with us.”

“Us?”

Hannibal has frozen in place, and Will grins cruelly. That hurts him too but he does not stop. “Will, I-”

“I saw the pictures,” he says suddenly, and Hannibal looks as if he’s struggling to place what he is referring to. _He’s badly injured,_ Will muses, _might die._ He finds that is not an acceptable outcome. “Pretty good. Where’s Chiyoh?”

The conversation is moving too quickly and Hannibal is unfocused and unsure. “I do not know,” he lies.

“Bullshit. Give me your phone, I know you have one.” Hannibal hands it over, a simple flip phone, and Will dials the only number in the call history. “Where are you? It’s in the closet? Alright, we’ll meet you there.” He hangs up and snaps the phone in two, pocketing the halves. “Grab the tripod, I’ll get everything else.”

He doesn’t wait to see if Hannibal is doing what he asked before he vanishes into the depths of the house. A door calls to him and he hesitates, pushing the door open. There is a dog bed inside. He closes the door and continues on to Hannibal’s room, pulling the large duffle bag out of the closet before walking straight back to the living room.

Hannibal is sitting on the floor but the tripod is in his lap. His eyes are closed. Will kicks him. “Time to go,” he announces, and helps him up.

“I may need additional support,” Hannibal groans, and Will rolls his eyes.

“Whatever you need,” he acquiesces after zipping the tripod and camera into the bag and slinging it over his uninjured shoulder, and then Hannibal’s face is buried in his neck and a hand is clutching him in a way that most definitely does not provide additional support, at least not physically. “You planning on doing this all the way down the cliff?” No response.

Hannibal is breathing, which is something, but Will needs a way to distract himself as they pick their way down the treacherous walking path so he does not panic and send them falling to their almost certain deaths. “We should say our goodbyes,” he suggests, ignoring the pain and exhaustion wracking his body. The body against him tenses. “To everyone else, I mean. We owe Bedelia a visit, after all.” He hums thoughtfully. “Did you have something in mind? Personally, I’m in the mood for rump roast.”

As always, Hannibal does not dignify that with a response, but Will feels the other man smile against his neck, and it seems like everything might turn out alright after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Am I trying to say The Fall wouldn't have happened if Hannibal had just reached a little lower and grabbed a big handful? All I'm saying is you can't entirely rule it out.


End file.
